NIGHT TIDE
US, 1961, 84 minutes, Black and white.
Dennis Hopper, Linda Lawson, Gavin Muir, Luana Anders, Marjorie Eaton.
Directed by Curtis Harrington.
Night Tide is a surprisingly interesting small-budget film from 1961. Its writer-director, Curtis Harrington, spent most of his career in television but at the end of the 60s and into the early 70s made several horror films for the big screen which have some classic status: Games, What’s the Matter with Helen.
Dennis Hopper, twenty-five at the time, plays a rather diffident clean-cut American sailor (very different from his later roles). On leave, he is attracted to a young woman (Linda Lawson) who plays a mermaid in a pier carnival. She believes that she is a siren and this is confirmed by the English captain who found her and brought her to America as a child. (Gavin Muir portrays the English captain but was American-born, educated in England.) Luana Anders is the sympathetic daughter of the merry-go-round proprietor on the pier. Marjorie Eaton is effective, especially in a tarot cards reading, as a fortune teller.
The film is based on some lines from Edgar Allen Poe from Annabelle Lee. It takes the story of the sirens and puts it in a colourful new context. The film is atmospheric and moody rather than having any horror. However, as the young sailor becomes more and more infatuated with the mermaid and she becomes more and more concerned with her being drawn back into the sea, it culminates in a sad conclusion – although the explanation given at the end comes very quickly and perhaps too easily.
1.An interesting drama of the 1960s? The early career of Dennis Hopper? Curtis Harrington?
2.The California locations, Venice Beach, Santa Monica and Ocean Pier? The apartments, the carnival, the sea? The atmospheric score (by David Raksin)?
3.The credits, the water, the tides? The explanation, the full moon? The fatal diving episode at high tide?
4.Johnny Drake, from Colorado, joining the navy to see the world? On leave? Going to the club, listening to the combo, attracted towards Maura? Following her? Her being haunted by the old woman? Going to her apartment, the next day, the breakfast? With the sea birds? The other visits, the attraction? Her work in the carnival, Captain Murdoch and his bringing her to America? Her costume as the mermaid? The later meetings, the information about the boyfriends who died? Her fears, in the water, Johnny rescuing her from the water? Fearing she had sleepwalked? The full moon, going diving, her cutting herself loose? Surrendering to the sea? Seeing her dead at the carnival?
5.Maura as a character, her background, Greek, the little girl, in America? With Captain Murdoch, wanting her freedom? The boyfriends and their deaths? Murdoch filling her mind with the siren legends? Her friendship with Johnny, falling in love, the breakfast, the sleepwalking? Her fears? Her sinister appearances in his dreams? Her decision to die?
6.Captain Murdoch, his story, his drinking, his warnings to Johnny? Reminding him when Johnny got the massage? His final explanations of what he had done?
7.The carnival people, Ellen and her father, Ellen as sympathetic, coming to the police station at the end? Madame Romanovich, the gossip, her reading the tealeaves? Johnny’s session with her, her explanation of the tarot cards and their revelation of the world?
8.The police investigation, the finale with Johnny and with the captain?
9.The musical background, the combo in the club?
10.A reliance on performance, photography, music, atmosphere to create a mystique?
